28 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2024
  2. johnhalbrooks.substack.com johnhalbrooks.substack.com
    1. The fire completely consumed some of them, but among the survivors, though badly singed around the edges, was a curious book known as the Nowell Codex, which formed part of a volume labeled “Cotton MS Vitellius A XV.” (Robert Cotton, who had collected the manuscripts a century before, categorized his books with the busts of Roman emperors, which sat atop his shelves—hence, “Vitellius.”)

      Robert Cotton's library had busts of Roman emperors atop his shelves, and he used their names as part of his indexing system to be able to associate books' locations to make them findable.

  3. Dec 2023
  4. Oct 2023
  5. Sep 2023
    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rZIpsFE6Yw

      Attended live on 2023-09-07

    2. https://libcal.library.upenn.edu/event/11148297

      9th-century copy of Boethius's Latin translation of Aristotle's De interpretatione, referred to in the manuscript as Periermenias, with the shorter of two commentaries that Boethius wrote on that work. Replacement leaves added in the 11th century to the beginning (f. 1-4) and end (f. 45-64) of the manuscript, in addition to providing the beginning and end of the Boethius (which is probably lacking 2 gatherings between extant gatherings 6 and 7), include the Periermeniae attributed to Apuleius in the medieval period, a poem by Decimus Magnus Ausonius on the seven days of Creation, a sample letter of a monk to an abbot with interlinear and marginal glosses, and other miscellaneous verses, definitions, and excerpts. Dot Porter, University of Pennsylvania, has determined that two groups of leaves are misbound; leaves 5-12 (the original order appears to have been 5, 9, 10, 6, 7, 11, 12, 8) and leaves 53-64 (the original order of the leaves appears to have been 61, 62, 53-60, 63, 64).

    1. For those interested in the history of classical education, manuscripts, books, and knowledge transfer, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries and the Shoenberg Institute have a potentially relevant ongoing zoom series called Coffee with a Codex in which they regularly bring out rare manuscripts, codices, incunabula, etc. from their collection to show and discuss.

      Keep in mind that the presentation is done by library curators who may not be subject matter experts on the books they present, but the topics are nearly all relevant to classical education. Most attendees are academics, historians, medievalists, or regularly doing research in the areas of information studies and will often have thoughts, ideas, or experience with classical education, and may be able to answer questions about historical practices in the chat. Presentations are generally informal, short, and meant for a generalist audience. Quite often digital scans of the materials they present are available for browsing online or downloading for further study.

      See the full schedule for Coffee with a Codex three weeks ahead at https://schoenberginstitute.org/coffee-with-a-codex/

      To give folks an idea of the presentations, recordings of Coffee With A Codex since January 2022 are available at their YouTube Playlist. (To my knowledge they don't archive copies of their chat transcripts where the participants are usually fairly active, but some of the chat does make it verbally into the recorded discussion.)

      Of particular interest this coming week is a presentation on a book which will touch on the recent conversation "Ancient Textbooks for Ancient Curriculums?" by u/psimystc with respect to the Carolingian educational program in the 9th-11th centuries.

      https://libcal.library.upenn.edu/event/11148297

      Details

      Date: Thursday, September 7, 2023<br /> Time: 12:00pm - 12:30pm

      Coffee with a Codex: Boethius and Aristotle <br /> On September 7, Curator Dot Porter will bring out LJS 101, a 9th and 11th century copy of Aristotle translated by Boethius, created as part of the Carolingian educational program. See the record: https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9951865503503681

      Free registration is required. https://libcal.library.upenn.edu/event/11148297

      An informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend. Welcome back for 2023-2024!

      Syndication link: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicalEducation/comments/16a1oyi/coffee_with_a_codex_at_penn_libraries_recurring/

  6. May 2023
    1. As you go about town…constantly observe, note, and consider the circumstances and behavior of men as they talk, quarrel, or laugh, or come to blows. — Codex Ash.
  7. Feb 2023
    1. p143 contains details for calculation of gravity

      see: https://hypothes.is/a/Q1UdwLb8Ee2Mtrt-YbDa4g

    2. 1478-1518, Notebook of Leonardo da Vinci (''The Codex Arundel''). A collection of papers written in Italian by Leonardo da Vinci (b. 1452, d. 1519), in his characteristic left-handed mirror-writing (reading from right to left), including diagrams, drawings and brief texts, covering a broad range of topics in science and art, as well as personal notes. The core of the notebook is a collection of materials that Leonardo describes as ''a collection without order, drawn from many papers, which I have copied here, hoping to arrange them later each in its place according to the subjects of which they treat'' (f. 1r), a collection he began in the house of Piero di Braccio Martelli in Florence, in 1508. To this notebook has subsequently been added a number of other loose papers containing writing and diagrams produced by Leonardo throughout his career. Decoration: Numerous diagrams.

    1. The Codex Arundel, named after a British collector, the Earl of Arundel, who acquired it early in the 17th century. Da Vinci composed the collection of hundreds of papers between 1478 and 1518 — that is, between the ages of 26 and 66 — the year before his death. The papers now reside in the British Library. The collection features his famous mirror-writing as well as diagrams, drawings and texts covering a range of topics in art and science.

      Da Vinci composed a collection of hundreds of papers from 1478 and 1518 which are now bound in the Codex Arundel, named for the Earl of Arundel who acquired it in the 17th century.

  8. Mar 2022
  9. Feb 2022
    1. We provide the first demonstration that a neural network solvesuniversity-level mathematics problems. Our methods combinetwo innovations: (i) recent neural networks pre-trained on textand fine-tuned on code, rather than pre-trained on text alone,and (ii) novel techniques to automatically rephrase problems soneural networks can synthesize correct executable programs.We generate programs that perfectly solve a random sampleof problems from MIT mathematics courses including Singleand Multi-variable Calculus, Differential Equations, Probabilityand Statistics, Linear Algebra, and Mathematics for ComputerScience, as well as problems in the MATH benchmark of highschool math topics. Our methods also generate new questionsthat are indistinguishable by students from course questions.Implications for higher education include new roles of AI inautomatic course evaluation and content generation.

      A neural network solves university-level mathematics problems (questions from MIT math courses).

  10. Dec 2021
  11. Nov 2021
    1. LJS 418, f. 3r, the remnants of a sewing repair with thread remaining

      In parchment manuscripts one will often see small pin prick holes in the parchment which indicates that a hole in the animal skin was repaired during processing. Usually after curing and before use the thread from the repair is removed leaving only the small holes.

      Rarely, but occasionally, the thread will still remain in the final manuscript. An example of this is LJS 418, f 3r where one can see the thread left in the page.

    2. The smudged line indicating where the quire would have been originally folded is clear in the center of the folio.

      Smudged or worn lines on manuscripts may be indicative of a manuscript having been unbound and potentially folded and possibly carried during regular use.

      LJS 418 f. 6v shows an example of this pattern though the manuscript was later bound.

    1. Francesco Sacchini recommends two notebooks inDeratione libros cum profectu legendi libellus(Wu ̈rzburg, 1614), chap. 13, p. 91: “Not unlike attentivemerchants . . . [who] keep two books, one small, the other large: the first you would calladversariaor a daybook(ephemerides),the second an account book(calendarium)and ledger(codex).”
  12. Oct 2021
  13. Aug 2021
  14. Mar 2017